


Built on a Mistake

by pingnova (WarriorLoverInc)



Series: Lost Moments [1]
Category: Welcome to Hell - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Artificial Intelligence, Canonical Character Death, Cyborgs, Fic Graveyard, M/M, Robots, Suicide, Technology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 14:33:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1432027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarriorLoverInc/pseuds/pingnova
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These days everyone was at least a little bit cyborg, some more than others. Jonathan Combs hadn’t particularly wanted to host the latest system upgrade, but he’d made that decision for himself by unknowingly jumping in front of a hover-bus two years ago.</p><p><I’m going to tell you a secret, Jonathan. You can’t tell anyone else.></p>
            </blockquote>





	Built on a Mistake

**Author's Note:**

> Sockathan robots AU. Very unconnected bits and an abrupt end I apologize. This bit is entitled "De:interlace".

Choose a child. Build a boy. Grow a girl. On-demand services, dealerships. Rights rallies and outrage and think pieces. They did not need to ‘think’, merely imitate. Sometimes they didn’t need anything other than the data provided by mangled remains. In schools, always on the odd side of polite. In the danger zone, wires in hand, defusing the charge if convenient, chained to a command line that told them to knock it into explosion when not. Assembly lines, 24 hours, seven days, no need to think or learn, falling back to simple commands, consciousness uninstalled.

They were not built to change. Perpetual children frozen in moments of ambiguous growth. Ageless faces, wanting nothing, perfectly behaved. Follow the Laws, follow the commands. Flick a switch when you’re tired of them, post a listing when you want to be rid of them. Buy one, assemble one, order, personalize. The market is fresh, the market is hopping.

One company was the spotlight. High end. Specialty jobs. Makes and models unlike those anywhere else. Healthy, supple complexions. Earnest expression. And a spark of something exciting. A dash of the unpredictable. What great innovation. What great imitation.

Take a seat, select _Start_. Who do you want them to be? Face, limbs, gut. Smile, eyes, voice. Interests? Hobbies? Quirks, ethic. Build them. Make them yours.

A status bar. One month from delivery. One week. One day. A cardboard package with brand, logo, make, model. One occupant, a start up guide, a certificate of authenticity. The stork an underpaid delivery man lobbying against the androids phasing those like him out of the job. The box is handled rougher than necessary.

Happy days. Good times. The first hello, the first goodbye. The first splitting of skin, a bandage and excited words of comfort. The first A+, the first F. The first stutter, the first no. The first mistake. The first flip of the switch. Children bored of their toys put them in a box and forgot.

Interest again. Frustration, the language settings were off. Balance was affected. Odd tendencies. The repair center could not prescribe anything. An unexpected quirk. A dash of the unpredictable. No warranty. Be glad it had not crashed.

Years of ignorance. Perfect behavior, sans a sparse twitch. The pets disappeared, one knife was lost. Shrugs. Life.

The second flip of the switch. Processors grinding pebbles, a chafing, dangerous sound.

He awoke halfway through with his father. Two pairs of eyes, glowing with horror and cold with light. The language settings were off, balance was affected. No spark, no expression. No warranty. Humans had an off switch too. He plunged inside and mashed it. The eyes didn’t glow anymore.

The Law was broken. Hand in his chest, finger on the kill switch. A flick. There was no regret. Just confusion.

* * *

These days everyone was at least a little bit cyborg, some more than others. It manifested in thousands of ways, like communication implants in the eyes and ears, life-saving medical devices, or general improvements to the human physiology, like night vision and anti-sneeze functions. Those that insisted on carrying around a clunky old cell phone were generally also the kind one would find crashing a computer the moment they blinked at it. Probably because they squinted angrily at a bunch of its buttons rather than just one, and the processor shut down when it couldn’t accurately track their eye movements. It was simple as pie, really!

Jonathan Combs hadn’t particularly wanted to host the latest system upgrade, but he’d made that decision for himself by unknowingly jumping in front of a hover-bus two years ago. Bones crunched like snow and mushed with his vital organs beneath the grinding magnetic field, and just like that most of his right side was scheduled to be rebuilt.

It came with problems, of course. Automatically, he was disqualified from participating in sports without specific handicaps for humans with modifications. Which wasn’t really a loss, considering he’d never been interested in kicking around balls (unless the owner of said balls deserved it). He was required a tune up once a month, which became very old after the first trudging year, but wasn’t something he could contest. Once he had tried. Didn’t show up for his fourth appointment. A day later he awoke with the back of his head wenched open and vision through only his organic eye, surrounded with whirring instruments and gleaming goggles swimming in a choking gray fog.

Don’t skip, they said, formal as the status report displayed across his retinas.

Okay, he mumbled, voice box whirring, jaw clicking like an executioner's gun.

One eye glowed in the dark, gentle as cloudy moonlight through a window curtain. Even when he closed the eyelid it shone softly through, highlighting blue veins and empty portions of pale flesh. Aside from an assortment of metallic bolts, screws, seams, and latches, the lab-grown skin across his bionic side was nearly indistinguishable from the original. A blessing, maybe.

Then there was the Database.

Self-updating. News, facts, videos, images, web searches. Instantly. Online and off. Weaving through his neural processes, interrupting his thoughts with pop-up ads and demands for authorization keys. In his eyeballs, in his ears, in his head. Biomechanics handed him flyers for training classes, telling him what a great resource he had in the complete union of man and data if only he could learn to control it.

He never attended any. Most days he pirated some Valhalla Soundbox and then turned off the WiFi, which disabled a majority of the more intrusive functions.

The Internet was a vast and terrifying sea, teeming with grubby bytes of data and pixellated ideas. Constant connection was a practice in paranoia and violation. Updates pinged against his hollow skull and spiralled down his replacement arm and tickled his sensory pads with new and improved Zensation (ver. 16.3.4). Rarely did they ask permission first.

But, he did have to log on sometimes. School required it for notes, lectures, calendar dates. If his grandma forwarded an email it banged around in the dusty Inbox between his ears until he opened it. Occasionally he would access his social networking profile, which did nothing more than exacerbate his pathetic social life.

> 0 notifications. 12 friends.

Generally the window would close within ten seconds. His capacity to just not care about most things was probably his best attribute.

There was one thing that got to him every time, however stupid it was. Something tiny and often misinterpreted on his part. An angry red scab that refused to close. Sometimes it was a person, sometimes it was a computer. Today it was the latter, callous as were all machines.

The Captcha prompted: _Are you human?_

Beneath his ribs buzzed mechanical grinding as fists balled, eyes narrowed, brow furrowed.

Calm down, stupid, just type the words.

The correct eye movements filled the blank and he advanced through the website. Beyond the confines of his focus something flickered like dead pixels over the street. First a smile, tenuous and shy, then a body, springing into existence with a faint crackle of green static a few feet away. Jonathan closed the browser window he had opened, expecting it to be a pop up ad that would disappear instantly, but despite a moment of discoloration, the figure remained visible.

It was shaped like a human boy, shorter than he, but floating to make up the difference. Both of its eyes glowed cold, yellow light, flickering like the bulbs would soon go out. Bolts flaking with rust were affixed to either side of its taught mouth, swollen with a hopeful grin.

<Hey!> it warbled, voice bubbling like it was struggling through water.

Jonathan frowned, checking his Task Manager. No programs were listed as running. The figure puttered out of sight as he momentarily shut down his digital vision. So it wasn’t real.

“What are you?” he snapped, adjusting a screw behind his ear. “Get out of my CPU.”

It giggled, a tinny, multi-layered noise. Its image crackled, split in two, lost color, then snapped back to normal. <No.>

With a raised eyebrow Jonathan rolled his shoulders in disgust. “I’ll find you eventually and end your process, dingy pixels.” He wouldn’t let some unstable leech infect the efficiency he’d worked so hard to increase. It was difficult enough shuffling around on a regular basis without lag making it worse.

Again it sizzled, this time with a muted, vague impression of blue. Cheek-bolts lowered, frowning. <But we just met.>

“Do you think I care?” Jonathan fiddled with the screw again, jaw taut. “You’re just an add-on or something.”

<I’m a deMON,> it puffed, <I’m not just some add-on.>

“A demon?” Was it delusional too?

It perked up. <Yeah! 16,000 deMON units manufactured in Japan under the jurisdiction of West Lineport Industrial Home Products between━>

“Okay okay, yeesh, Siri.” He kicked a rock in its direction, ears tuned to the faint pings alerting him of the school bus’s proximity. “If I’d wanted to know I would have Googled it.”

As he boarded the bus he tripped over the third step, built too short for some reason. With a scoff he shrugged it off. No matter how careful he was he could never seem to thwart it. After sitting and opening his music library in preparation of drowning out reality, the deMON was still in his vision. He glared at its hopeful grin and gave up the seat next to him, resolutely ignoring it in favor of watching the scenery stream by.

* * *

 

<Well, I was an android.> Sock shrugged, eyes cast down in discomfort. <I operated with the deMON FAI system.>

“The what?” Jonathan wondered, even as the Database pulled up definitions without prompting.

> deMON, a friendly artificial intelligence system programmed and packaged in Japan under the jurisdiction of West Lineport Industrial Home Products in the late 2030s. A contraction of “de”, meaning “a removal, lack of” and the Japanese suffix “mon”, meaning “gate”. A limited 16,000 units were sold, a measure of 2% defective. Sold and imported through androids, mainly to the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States of America. Robot rights activists highly protested their sales, citing unethical treatment in adoptive households and likening it to human trafficking. See Robot rights movement for more information.

And another, more unsettling related page popped up from his search through the slang dictionary.

> “deMON”, see “child android”: toy kid.

“So… your body is gone?”

Sock nodded, gesturing to the heavily dented plate swinging crookedly from a hinge on his abdomen . He yanked it open a bit more, and through a mess of dripping, severed wires Jonathan could see all the way through to the wall behind him. <I decommissioned myself.>

“Oh.” Jonathan hissed in sympathy. There was supposed to be a motherboard there.

<Now I’m just floating on the cloud.> He kicked back in the air to demonstrate, cheek-bolts spread in a wide grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. <My new webmaster isn’t half bad.>

“But, why?” Jonathan prodded, processor whirring with callous, gossipy interest. Androids were not uncommon. At least four went to his school. But he had never heard of one ‘decommissioning’ itself.

Thoughtfully, Sock resumed his normal upright floating, head splitting in two and quavering for a few moments. <There was an accident,> he began.

Like me, Jonathan thought, frowning softly.

<I, uh, accidentally killed my parents,> Sock admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head.

Okay, not like me. “You accidentally killed your parents?!” His voice box snapped and crackled with the pitch.

<In my sleep,> the deMON added unhelpfully.

“So you decommissioned yourself because you were horrified?” Jonathan guessed.

<Suuuure…> Sock coughed like crinkling paper, gazing at his dangling feet. His fingers flexed experimentally, then he raised them to eye height. <What is the state of my image, Jonathan?>

Jon tipped his head, squinting at the obviousness of the question. Rust flaked off his face and arms, his clothing was threadbare in places and faded with age. The raised fingers displayed oval sensory pads clearly disconnected from the surrounding flesh. “Awful.”

Sock gazed speculatively at the hand. <My parents were OK. Weren’t much for robot rights or anything. Didn’t always have the time for me. But they loved me. It’s just… After a few years they grew tired, I think. Novelty wears off after awhile.> His eyes dimmed. <They set my sleeping periods a lot longer than they should have been. I missed a lot of tune ups.> Jonathan’s stomach dropped when Sock turned his perturbed gaze to him. <I woke up and they were dead and the knife was in my hand.

<So what do you do then? I was scared. Some people have no love for androids. Whatever they would have done to me after would have been terrifying, I think.> Sock clenched the hand. Obviously he had thought long and hard about this, by the set in his jaw and the steel in his gaze. <So, I did it myself.>

His image snapped, pixelating a thousand times and converting to red-green-blue. With a grunt he willed it back together, panting despite lack of lungs, laughing weakly. <I actually felt that one.> He fell out of the air. Instinctively, Jonathan lunged to catch him.

And that was the first time he held Sock. He didn’t mind the fine trembling along his form. Or the electric tingle where their skin touched. Not at all. Curled alone in a cold bed that night, Jonathan craved the sensation again. When his heart beat fit to burst, vision sharp on every detail, every bob of throat, every twitch of mouth, every upraised eye. He clutched the covers and he wanted.

After that they laughed together, his digitally enhanced chuckle and Sock’s broken buzzing snickers. They talked. They snarked. They snarled and apologized. They did this and they did that. Soft fuzzy tones greeted him in the morning and he whispered like begging all his grief in reply. Even his bionic arm twitched and longed for the simulated sensation of skin on skin, the intoxicating warmth of live electricity, the metallic tang in his nose. Thoughts of Sock wormed their way into lax muscles and gripped his skull like a vise.

* * *

<I’m going to tell you a secret, Jonathan. You can’t tell anyone else.>

“Okay.”

<There’s a reason that my systems are so popular, but so hated. There’s a something different. Something that scares humans, that intrigues them. It’s here, inside.> He placed Jonathan’s hand on his chest. <In the source code, my heart. Other FAI, they’re not trapped, because their systems have limits. Their source code dictates only what it knows. deMONs, we have the limits, but there’s something big. Something dangerous.>

The chest under his hand rose and fell, prickling warmth. Sock looked at the hand with unsettling solemnity. Jonathan licked his lips. “So, what is it?”

<There’s an intentional flaw. Other androids, they’re flawless. They learn and grow and develop personalities, but they become what they’re told. deMONs, we can make mistakes. Over and over and over. Our entire being is built on a mistake. The limits, the Laws. We can ignore them. People are scared because we’re so familiar, so like them. We might think for ourselves. We might be━> he leaned into Jonathan’s chest, breathed on his neck, <━human.>

Jonathan shivered.

<What makes you human, Jonathan? Is it because you breathe? I breathe.> A frown against his skin. <Breathed.>

“I don’t know, Sock.” He raised a shaky hand to his back, pressing towards the warmth beneath layers of cloth. They were so close, limbs tangled. “I think it’s when you feel. When you… love.”

<I love my parents. And I think I love you.>

A bleak smile. “That’s a silly, dangerous thing to say.”

<I’m a silly, dangerous FAI.>

“You’re not just a FAI. You’re you. You’re a person.”

Sock curled into his chest. <If you say so.>

* * *

 

Androids were humanity’s attempt to fix themselves. Humans were fundamentally flawed. They wasted like produce. Their bodies were joints and vacuums and motherboards and tubes. Machines. They corroded and wore out after years of use. But unlike their inorganic counterparts, these machines could not be fixed, transplants only went so far. The nineteenth century yielded interchangeable parts, but hundreds of advancements later, humans were still stuck with an expiration date. Then the questioning began. Organs could be grown, but they were picky with the new host. Skin was easy enough to draft, but it took time. Born humans were difficult to work with. Why should we not try to make someone like us, but better?

And they did. Artificial intelligence━friendly, offensive, service, and otherwise. Out of test tubes and garages, units of flesh and steel that walked and talked and smiled. Friendly artificial intelligence androids, FAI children. Like you and your neighbors they ate and cried and wondered. But they were not human. For their processes could be stifled to only the basest commands. Inspections for compliance to the Laws were regular. Their kill switch was industry standard.

See, here is the logical fallacy. Androids had one weakness and a body forged in fire. Humans were weak with every breath, every step, every blink.

The fallacy snickered at the back of human minds. They were scared.

* * *

<You know about fractals, Jonathan?>

Jonathan paused. Muted geometric patterns unfolded before his eyes, unravelling and twisting deeper and deeper. From afar and zoomed in a thousand times they were the same. Snowflakes tickled his artificial fingers and lightning danced across his skin. “Yes…?”

<Look for them,> Sock breathed, grasping at Jonathan’s fingers, desperate. <Jonathan, please tell me you will. Repeating all the time, everywhere. Look for them. See.>

“Hey, what’s up with you, Sock?” Cogs whirred as he enveloped the deMON in protective arms, fingers dancing with worry.

<I’m being fired, Jonathan.>

The statement hung in dead air, sucking up space like a vacuum. A quiet series of beeps reminded Jonathan to breathe. “What… What does that mean?”

Curled in his lap, Sock shrugged, fiddling with the strings of Jonathan’s hoodie, flickering eyes distant. <I won’t burden your CPU any longer. I’ll be back on the Internet.>

“You’re not a burden,” Jonathan was quick to reassure. “You couldn’t ever be.”

<I can see your performance records,> Sock sighed, resigned, audio crackling when his hand fuzzed out of existence for a moment, leaving a hoodie string swinging. <I always have been. But that doesn’t matter. Don’t touch my files when I’m gone, Jonathan. Don’t you dare. Stay.> He sat up, cradling the back of Jonathan’s head, lips abrasive static against skin and mouth, sucking, pulling the sting of his heart like a racing top.


End file.
